Problematika němých písmen v anglickém jazyce pro české rodilé mluvčí

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Problematika němých písmen v anglickém jazyce pro české rodilé mluvčí

Bakalářská práce

Studijní program: B1801 – Informatika

Studijní obory: 1802R023 – Informatika se zaměřením na vzdělávání 7507R036 – Anglický jazyk se zaměřením na vzdělávání Autor práce: Ondřej Bucek

Vedoucí práce: Nicola Karásková, M.A.

Liberec 2018

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The Problem of Silent Letters in English for Czech Native Speakers

Bachelor thesis

Study programme: B1801 – Informatics

Study branches: 1802R023 – Informatics for Education 7507R036 – English for Education

Author: Ondřej Bucek

Supervisor: Nicola Karásková, M.A.

Liberec 2018

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my supervisor, Nicola S. Karásková, M.A for her time, patience, advice and, most importantly, her voice, which made the initial research possible. I would like to thank Radislav Šplýchal for conducting the recordings as well as all the students of Faculty of Science, Humanities and Education at the Technical University of Liberec participating in the research. The rest of my gratitude goes to my mother and my brother.

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Anotace a klíčová slova

Tato bakalářská práce se v teoretické části zabývá definicí němých písmen, vysvětlením důvodů jejich výskytu v Anglickém jazyce a také stručně nastiňuje jejich historický vývoj. V práci jsou dále představena jednotlivá němá písmena společně s pravidly a vzorci popisujícími jejich typický výskyt. Teoretická část také vysvětluje, proč by měla anglickým němým písmenům být v České republice věnována speciální pozornost.

Praktická část je založena na lekci a sérii cvičení vytvořených s cílem prozkoumat a posléze rozšířit znalosti o němých písmenech u studentů. Cvičení byla vytvořena s ohledem na aktuálnost slov, která byla užita v příkladech. Jako rozhraní pro cvičení byl zvolen již zavedený univerzitní internetový kurz. Samotným cvičením předcházel diagnostický test, který zjišťoval úroveň znalostí studentů v oblasti němých písmen.

Klíčová slova

Němá písmena, výslovnost, ortografie, shoda grafému a fonému, pravopis

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Annotation and Key Words

In the theoretical part, the aim of the thesis is to define silent letters and explain the reasons for their appearance in the English language, as well as to briefly outline their historical development. Distinct silent letters are then introduced alongside with rules and patterns which describe their typical occurrence. The theoretical part also explains why there is a need for Czech learners of English to pay special attention to the problem of English silent letters.

The practical part is based on an online lecture and series of exercises which I created with the aim of examining and subsequently helping students to improve their ' level of knowledge concerning silent letters. The exercises were created with regard to the currency of the words used as examples. For the examining and practising the interface of the university's already established e-learning course was chosen. The exercises were preceded by a diagnostic test, which was used to ascertain the students level of knowledge about silent letters.

Key words

Silent letters, pronunciation, orthography, grapheme-to-phoneme correspondence, spelling

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List of abbreviations

BNC - British National Corpus (BNC) CD - Cambridge Dictionary (CD)

COCA - Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) OCC - Oxford Corpus Collection (OCC)

OLD - Oxford Learners Dictionary (OLD) TUL - Technical University of Liberec (TUL)

CEFR - The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR)

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Table of figures

Figure 1: Diagram of The Great Vowel Shift (Algeo, 2004, 161) ... 24

Figure 2: Summarization of the changes in long vowels (Algeo, 2004, 160) ... 25

Figure 4: An example of short answer question ... 45

Figure 3: An example of multiple choice question ... 45

Figure 5: Instructions for the test ... 49

Figure 6: The Results of FO1BE ... 51

Figure 7: The results of FO1K ... 54

Figure 8: E-learning interface ... 59

Figure 9: Overview of the lesson ... 60

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1 Introduction

At first, it may seem of lesser importance what our native language is while learning a foreign one. After all, we must all learn the same structure and rules of that particular language which we decided to study. Although we all, indeed, learn the same grammatical rules and pronunciation patterns of that language of our choosing, the mother tongue affects the learning process. The importance of the differences in certain features of our native language and the targeted language varies significantly.

Some languages, like Czech for example, have rather substantial grapheme- phoneme correspondence, which means that they are close to having a phonemic orthography. Even though Czech has features affecting the pronunciation of some letters in certain positions, such as the effect of regressive assimilation in the word svatba /svadba/,there is far greater correlation between phonemes and graphemes than there is in many other languages. The vowel sounds in Czech, for example, always correspond to vowel letters. Generally speaking, in Czech the spelling of a word, in most cases, reliably suggests its pronunciation.

At the same time, there are also languages where letter-to-sound correspondence is not nearly as dependable as it is in the Czech language. One of the most vivid examples is the English language. It is therefore difficult for a native speaker of a language with a high degree of letter-to-sound correspondence to learn a language where the rules which the speaker is used to do not apply.

A common mistake, which is only natural for students while learning another language, is to apply the pronunciation rules of their mother tongue to the foreign one that they decided to study. In Czech, every letter in a word is usually pronounced, which leads to an obvious problem. When a Czech learner of English encounters an

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English word, they naturally tend to pronounce it as they would while speaking Czech.

Among other rules of Czech pronunciation which are commonly applied to English, there is the tendency to pronounce every single letter in a given word. Not every letter in some English words, however, should be pronounced. In this thesis I focus on the problems which this inconsistency causes to Czech native speakers of English. To explain the issue and to bring some order into this seemingly nonsensical feature of English, I want to define what these so-called silent letters are, describe how they emerged and explore the functions they have in the language.

The theoretical part is mainly based on reading books on the historical development of the English language as well as books dealing with contemporary grammar and spelling system. The ultimate goal of the practical part of the thesis is to create a lecture covering the topic and provide students with several exercises enabling them to practice listening and to get aware of the problem in general. In order to create relevant materials, I decided to include a diagnostic test, the results of which would help to determine the content of the lecture. The research should therefore answer the following questions.

1. How did silent letters emerge in the English language?

2. What is their function and why is it important to be aware of them?

3. Do silent letters really cause students any exceptional difficulties?

4. Is it possible to specify a set of rules, which would enable students to unmistakably recognize when a letter is silent?

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2 Theoretical part

One of several reasons why learning the English language can be particularly difficult is its spelling system, or the difference between its spelling system and pronunciation, to be more precise. There are many exceptions and irregularities in the English spelling patterns which confuse foreign learners. One of them is its lack of direct grapheme to phoneme correspondence, which is especially complicated for learners whose mother tongue is one of those which have a greater letter to sound correspondence. However, in many cases it may be difficult for native speakers as well. It is supported by a study by Philip H.K. Seymour, Mikko Aro and Jane M.

Erskinesuggest (2003, 143), who suggest that to develop at least basic decoding skills in English by its native speakers is more difficult and time-consuming than to achieve the same level in different European languages by their native speakers. This difference is still more evident when compared directly to a language with shallow orthographic depth, in which the written language only slightly deviates from the direct letter–phoneme correspondence. Finnish, in reality, is considered to have the shallowest orthographic depth and therefore the most dependable letter to sound correspondence (Seymour, 2003, 146) .

One of the reasons for this inconsistency of spelling and pronunciation is the fact that there are more sounds in English than there are letters to represent these sounds.

Having only 26 letters of the alphabet to represent 44 distinct sounds means that some of the letters must be used to represent more than one sound, or that a sound must be represented by a combination of letters. It can be clearly represented in the following examples. The letter <a> may be pronounced as /æ/ in the word cap /kæp/, or as

/ɑː/ as in the word bark /bɑːk/. Other possibilities for its pronunciation are /eɪ/, /iː/,

/e/, or /ɔː/, as in fake /feɪk/, eat /iːt/, many /ˈmenɪ/, all /ɔːl/. It can also represent

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the phoneme /ə/, known as schwa, which can be illustrated with the word again

/əˈɡen/. Similarly, the letter <t> can be pronounced as /t/ in the word transparent

/trænˈspærənt/, or as /θ/ when it precedes the letter <h> as in the word thick /θɪk/,

or as /ð/ in the wordthat /ðæt/. To make the matter even more complicated, distinct phonemes may be represented by multiple different letters or their combination. For instance, in the words sail /seɪl/ and cell /sel/,where the phoneme /s/ is represented by the letters <s> and <c>, or plaque /plɑːk/, cotton /kɒtn/ and keep /kiːp/, where the phoneme /k/ is represented by three different forms of spelling.

Another cause of the difference between the pronunciation of words and their graphemic representation is the tendency of the English language to borrow words from other languages and, in some cases, to maintain their original spelling patterns or pronunciation. Such an example is the phrase faux pas /fəʊ ˈpɑː/ or the word denouement /deɪˈnuː.mɒ̃/. Modern English, apart from many other contributing languages, mainly constitutes of Anglo-Saxon and French, which are based on completely different pronunciation and spelling systems. This is all supported by the need to create new words to name new inventions and discoveries and by the process of globalization of the English language, as it is spoken by non-natives as a second language and very often used as the lingua franca in the scientific community.

Consequently, words from Italian, Spanish, German, Dutch, Latin, Greek, Turkish, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Russian and Hindi were gradually added to English, thus diversifying its spelling system even more by their different spelling systems (Brookes, 2011).

It is also necessary to take into consideration that throughout history, the English language was, and still is, simultaneously evolving in many parts of the world, in some

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cases even independently from each other. As a result, there is a variety of accents with differences in their pronunciation and spelling rules.

Among many of these inconsistencies between English pronunciation and its spelling system, which in some cases are very difficult to become accustomed, there is the phenomenon known as silent letters. English, however, is not the only language in which this phenomenon can be found. It may not seem so, but nearly every language contains some letters which, on certain occasions, may be silent (Fulford, 2012, 136).

This is mostly dependent on the spelling system of the language, the pace of speech and also the punctuation. What makes the English language stand out is the quantity, that is the number of letters which may be silent, and the frequency of their occurrence in everyday situations. The issue is, what exactly the term silent letter means. More precisely, how a silent letter can be defined in the English language.

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2.1 Definition of silent letters

In this part, it is defined what exactly a silent letter is and explained why a single definition of the term is not suitable for every situation, as some of the available definitions are bound to cause more difficulties to learners of English than the others.

Probably the simplest definition of the term that is available is this following. “A word contains a silent letter if the letter is not sounded when the word is pronounced.”

(Brookes, 2011, page 24) Many books, even those dealing explicitly with spelling and English grammar, such as Does Spelling Matter or The Complete Guide to English Spelling Rules, seem to be content with this definition. After all, it conveys the most important piece of information about the issue, which is enough in most cases.

Therefore many authors do not further classify silent letters. As a result, there are very few linguists who analyse the definition of this phenomenon in detail, which means that there are even fewer publications and text-books covering it.

However, in some cases this may not be enough as several interesting questions might arise. The first may be what exactly the expression “is not sounded,” means. It is unclear whether it means that the letter is not directly represented by any phoneme or that it does not affect the pronunciation at all. Consider the words handsome

/ˈhænsəm/ and tape /teɪp/. The letter <e> at the end of the word tape changes the pronunciation of the letter <a> from the monophthong /æ/ to the diphthong /eɪ/. Compare the pronunciation of tape /teɪp/ and tap /tæp/. It is therefore possible to hear the effect which the letter <e> has on the pronunciation of the word. However, this is not true for the letter <d> as in handsome. So the definition “is not sounded” is adequate to explain fully what a silent letter is.

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A different approach is to treat the term as a more generic phrase which needs to be further specified. Although a more detailed classification is not completely unanimous among linguists, it is usually based on the function of these letters in given words. That is, according to how they affect the pronunciation of a word. Edward Carney (2014, 40) actually defines three main kinds of silent letters.

The first kind is called auxiliary letters. This term is used when two combined letters represent a single phoneme, i.e. digraphs. The words thief /θiːf/, sing /sɪŋ/, phase /feɪz/, accommodate /əˈkɒmədeɪt/, black /blæk/, bread /bred/ and fine /faɪn/

all belong to this category as each of these pairs of graphemes <th>, <ng>, <ph>,

<cc>, <mm>, <ck>, <ea> and <i_e> represents only one phoneme.

The second category consists of so called inert letters. These are not classified according to their relation to letters close to them as it was with auxiliary letters. The difficulty is that inert letters do not have any phonetic counterpart nor do they affect the pronunciation of other graphemes in the word. However, in certain cognate words they do have direct phonetic representation. For instance words like damn /dæm/, sign

/saɪn/ and phlegm /flem/ all contain an inert letter. The cognate words damnation

/dæmˈneɪʃn/, signature /sɪɡnətʃə/, and phlegmatic /fleɡˈmætɪk/ do not.

The third category is called empty letters. The letters assigned to this category do not represent any phoneme as in words debt /det/, subtle /sʌtl/ or answer /ɑːnsə/. Carney also suggests (2014, 42) that apart from phonetic counterparts, empty letters do not have any distinctive function as inert or auxiliary letters have.

Very often it is difficult to decide to which specific category a silent letter belongs because, among other factors, it also depends on how precisely one is willing

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to study the etymology of a particular word in which it occurs. The letter in the word debt, for example, is considered to be an empty letter. However, if the etymological connection with the word debit /ˈdebɪt/ is explained, the letter in debt is an inert letter. (Carney, 2014, 41-42) The silent letters most relevant in this thesis are empty and inert letters as well as some specific kinds of auxiliary letters such as those in digraphs <ck>, <gu> and <ea>, because from the research, these seem to be the most difficult to learn.

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2.2 Development of silent letters

In this part the most important milestones in the development of English from the perspective of silent letters arepresented and briefly explained, which is followed by an explanation of what caused their emergence. This part is not intended to introduce the complex history of English in general, not even the changes in the language which are relevant for the relationship between the pronunciation and the spelling system of English, which means that many important historical events will be simplified for the sake of clarity.

During the beginnings of the Old English period, the runic system of writing was gradually being replaced by the Latin alphabet brought by monks when spreading Christianity (Horobin, 2013, 39). Although during this period English was already affected, or was being affected, by Celtic, Latin, Anglo-Saxon, Danish and Old Norse, the spelling system quite accurately represented the pronunciation. This means that throughout this period each letter was pronounced. (Crystal, 2014, 25)

The most significant changes, not only in spelling and pronunciation but also in the meaning of words, came during the Middle English period as a transition from Old English to the time when the first printed books started to emerge. These changes began with the arrival of the Normans who, although they had already been assimilated by the French from the perspective of both culture and language, brought with them the peculiarities of the Norman French dialect. After that, three languages were spoken in England. English was used by common people; Latin was mostly used by the Church; and French, or rather Anglo-Norman French, was mainly the language of nobility and the government. (Algeo, 2004, 123 and 125)

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Since French was considered to be the language of aristocrats while English was spoken predominantly by uneducated peasants, some letters were even added into many words, which in some cases were not of French origin at all, to make them look more like French. This can be illustrated by the word colour, which is of Latin origin and was changed into the present form by adding the letter , which is not pronounced. (Dubosarsky, 2009)

The Middle English period could be also described as an age of dialects. There were many different dialects emerging from English, now greatly influenced by Latin and French, since English, as a language, was not officially established nor regulated in any way. The differences between these regional dialects were, in some cases, so enormous that one dialect was almost incomprehensible to a speaker of a different one.

A peasant in Yorkshire, for example, would not have been understood by his counterpart in Cornwall. It is also important to mention that individual authors usually wrote in their own dialects during those times. This situation lasted until the Chaucer’s dialect of London emerged as something close to being the standard dialect. Although it rather meant that the London dialect to some extent affected the other dialects, which at the same time retained some of their different features. (Algeo, 2004, 131).

A feature which was common to all these dialects was that, the spelling was generally much closer to the contemporary way of pronunciation (Upward, 2011, 75- 76). However, this was far from an ideal situation. As there was no official language valid throughout the whole of England, this period was also noted for having no standard writing convention. People simply wrote what they heard in the way that they themselves felt was appropriate (Crystal, 2004, 241). As a result, it was not unusual to encounter different ways of spelling of the same word within a text by one author, even within the same paragraph. The word day was, for example, commonly spelt as

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dai, day, daye, dæi, daie, deai, dey, dei, or dawe (Crystal, 2004, 261). According to John Algeo, it was quite common to find within a few sentences spelling variations such as watter, water or trees, treese (2004, 131).

During the fifteenth century came a turning point for the English language from the perspective of its orthography. William Caxton introduced the printing press into England, which was the first step in creating a standard in the spelling system.

However, Caxton himself as well as other subsequent printers did not base their new spelling norm on the contemporary pronunciation, but on late medieval manuscripts, which even at that time were outdated (Algeo, 2004, 157). Consequently, every new piece of writing was printed using spelling which did not reflect the pronunciation typical even for those times. Another problem was that for some words, the printers themselves or some well-educated men had to decide how to spell them.

Unfortunately, these learned men seemingly preferred an archaic spelling whenever it was possible. Moreover, they spelled many words according to their etymology, thus inserting letters which were not pronounced into words in accordance with their Latin origin. For example, the words debt and doubt were originally spelled as det and dout.

In order to draw attention to their relation to the Latin words debitum and dubitare, the letter was needlessly added (Algeo, 2004, 156, 158). These were not the only attempts to reform English spelling of this kind. During the sixteenth century, people very often used etymology in an attempt to regulate spelling, which, unfortunately, resulted in even more irregularities represented by silent letters. (Crystal, 2014, 106)

In addition, some letters which are now silent were not silent in the past.

However, the spelling system was established in the time when they were pronounced, thus they maintained their original spelling form, although the pronunciation has since then changed. For example the word knight, which is now a homophone with the word

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night /naɪt/ was originally pronounced more like /knicht/, which changed during the late seventeenth century.

While the spelling system was thus standardized, the pronunciation was still changing at a rapid pace. The fifteenth century was not a turning point only regarding the spelling system. It was also the time when The Great Vowel Shift started. This was a radical change in pronunciation of long vowels. (Algeo, 2004, 160) As a result, these sounds were later made higher and further forward in the mouth. The following graph and table summarize the changes in the long vowels.

Figure 1: Diagram of The Great Vowel Shift (Algeo, 2004, 161)

Late Middle English Early Modern English Later English

/ ɑː / name / æː / / ɛː / name /neɪm/

/ eː / feet / i / feet /fiːt/

/ ɛ / greet / e / great /ɡreɪt/

/ iː / ride / əɪ / / aɪ / ride /raɪd/

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/ oː / boote / u / boot /buːt/

/ ɔ / boot / o / boat /bəʊt/

/ uː / hous / əʊ / / aʊ / house /haʊs/

Figure 2: Summarization of the changes in long vowels (Algeo, 2004, 160)

Although that linguists cannot agree on what exactly caused this remarkable change, the consequences seem to be unmistakable. It further increased the difference between the pronunciation of words and their orthographical representation. It also extended the number of irregularities which nowadays cause many difficulties to students of English. For example, the pairs of words entice /ɪnˈtaɪs/, police /pəˈliːs/

or decline /dɪˈklaɪn/ and routine /ruːˈtiːn/ are pronounced with a different vowel sound simply because the latter in each pair came into the language after the Great Vowel Shift and therefore was not affected. (Crystal, 2014, 92)

Another issue is that the spelling of some words did change in accordance with the change in pronunciation; however, the majority of words remained their original spelling. To make the matter even worse, The Great Vowel Shift did not occur in all accents simultaneously. The changes emerged gradually throughout all the accents present in England at the time, which means that in some cases a word with the new pronunciation was spelt in multiple different ways or it, in some regions, even preserved its original pronunciation. Example? (The History of English)

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2.3 Individual silent letters

This part deals with individual silent letters. Therefore, it focuses on analysing their typical position, alongside the rules for their occurrences and provides examples of words which contain them.

To begin with, it is necessary to determine which letters actually may appear in a position where they are not sounded. Unfortunately, this is much more complicated than it might at first seem. Whether a letter may be silent depends on factors like pace of speech, the accent of the speaker and, as stated in the part dealing with the definition of silent letters, on what exactly an author considers to be a silent letter. Ian Brooks suggest that apart from the letters <f>, <j>, <q>, <v> and <x> every letter of the English alphabet may become silent (2011, 25). This claim, however, does not seem to take in consideration words like halfpenny /heɪpni/, rijsttafel /raɪsˌtɑːfəl/, racquet

/rækɪt/, savvy /sævi/ or Sioux /suː/. According to both Richard Lederer (1989, 124) and Edward Carney (2014, 40) every single letter of the alphabet can become silent in certain circumstances, which seems to be more plausible an explanation as it is possible to find an example word for each letter to prove it. Consider that even as much as two thirds of all English words contain such a letter (Lederer, 1989, 24). Some silent letters simply occur so rarely that they do not pose a problem to students because they may never encounter them. This raises the question whether teachers of English should present these to students.

2.3.1 Functions of silent letters

At first, it may seem that silent letters are in many cases redundant and therefore could be omitted. This is a misunderstanding of the word ‘silent’, at least for most cases. Even though some silent letters indeed have no real function in present-day

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English, which refers to the category of so called dummy letter, i.e. inert and empty, these are invaluable from the etymological perspective. Silent letters perform a variety of functions.

● Silent letters help to distinguish homophones, thus preventing them from becoming homonyms, e.g. the homophones flue /fluː/ and flu

/fluː/.

● They help us to understand the meaning of words or origin of compounds, e.g. vineyard /vɪnjəd/.

● In some cases they modify the preceding vowel or make more complex graphic units and distinguish them from other graphemes.

(Carney, 2014, 40) In other words, they address the inadequacy of the Roman alphabet to express all the sounds present in English. The phoneme /θ/, for example, is represented by the digraph <th>.

● They also suggest the relation with other words, where the particular letter is still sounded, e.g. sign /saɪn/ and signature /sɪɡnətʃə/.

● They suggest the stress in certain words. Such as the final <fe>

in the word giraffe, which suggests that the stress should be on the second syllable. (Carney, 2014, 43)

● In some situations, they suggest the way of pronunciation of the preceding grapheme, which, for instance, helps to determine when to pronounce the grapheme <g> as /ɡ/ and not as /dʒ/. An example might be in guest /ɡest/.

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● Silent letters suggest a word etymology as well. For example

<t> in the word debut /deɪbjuː/ directs us to the French word début.

2.3.2 The Letter A

The letter <a> in an unstressed position is usually only pronounced in reduced form. Nevertheless, it optionally may be realized as silent, which is typical for forming adjectives or adverbs from words ending in <ic> by adding suffixes ical and ically.

For example the words artistically /ɑːˈtɪstɪkli/, logically /lɒdʒɪkli/, musically

/mjuːzɪkli/, romantically /rəʊˈmæntɪkli/ or stoically /stəʊɪkli/.

In some words it is silent but it performs a certain function such as distinguishing homophones or marks a compound word. For instance, the words bread /bred/ and aisle /aɪl/ where the letter <a> helps to distinguish the words from homophones isle and past tense of breed, bred. Another such example is the word extraordinary

/ɪkˈstrɔːdnri/ where it helps to recognize two parts of the compound, extra and ordinary.

In other words, it, however, does not appear to perform any function apart from suggesting the etymology of the words, which makes it especially difficult for learners.

Consider the words archaeology /ɑːkiˈɒlədʒi/, aesthetic /iːsˈθetɪk/, parliament

/pɑːlɪmənt/ or jealous /dʒeləs/. 2.3.3 The letter B

The letter is typically silent in the combination <mb> at the end of words.

For example, bomb /bɒm/, crumb /krʌm/ catacomb /kætəkuːm/, succumb /səˈkʌm/, and similar words. It is commonly silent in the <mb> combination in the middle of words, especially when it is in the same syllable. The words, comber /kəʊmər/ and

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bomblet /bɒmlət/ may be used as examples. However, there are some exceptions such as crumbly /krʌmbli/ or rhombic /rɒmbɪk/.

It is also generally silent before the letter <t> as in debt /det/, doubt /daʊt/ or subtle /sʌtl/. Other words in which it is not sounded exist, which, as in the case of above-mentioned exceptions, students must simply memorize. Luckily, words like subpoena /səˈpiːnə/ or bdellium /delɪəm/ are by no means a part of everyday vocabulary.

Technically, the letter is also silent when it is doubled as in robbery

/rɒbəri/. This is true for all doubled consonants, therefore it will not be further emphasised for each distinct consonant letter.

2.3.4 The letter C

The consonant letter <c> is often pronounced as /k/, which means that the combination of letters <ck> creates a doubled consonant sound /kk/. The same is valid for <c> when followed by the combination <qu>, which is typically pronounced as

/kw/. C is therefore considered as silent in this position. For example acquire

/əˈkwaɪər/, acquit /əˈkwɪt/ or stuck /stʌk/. It is sometimes silent before the letter <t>

as well when these letters are in the same syllable, e.g. indict /ɪnˈdaɪt/ or victuals

/vɪtlz/.

As the letter <c> is commonly pronounced as /s/, it is not sounded when it is between the letters <s>/<e>, <s>/, <x>/<e> or <x>/. This can be illustrated with words like scent /sent/, science /saɪəns/, excel /ɪkˈsel/ and excite /ɪkˈsaɪt/. C is also silent in initial position when followed by <z>. This is potentially very confusing

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for learners of English. However, there are only very few such words. A typical example is the word czar /zɑː/.

The grapheme <c> is also often silent when used in between the letters <s> and

<h>. This combination is then pronounced as <sh> /ʃ/, as in the word schedule

/ʃedjuːl/ in Standard British Accent. It often occurs in words of German origin. This can be illustrated in the words schnapps /ʃnæps/ or schlep /ʃlep/.

In addition, it is silent in other words, which students have to remember because there does not seem to be any specific pattern. Such words are, for example, muscle

/mʌsl/ or scythe /saɪð/. 2.3.5 The letter D

D may be silent when preceding the letters <g> or <j> as in the words dredger

/dredʒə/ or adjacent /əˈdʒeɪsnt/. It is dependent on the speaker, although the majority of speakers of English do not pronounce it (Fulford, 2012, 136).

It is also not sounded in words sandwich /sænwɪtʃ/, handsome /hænsəm/, handkerchief /hæŋkətʃɪf/, grandprix /ɡrɑ̃ːˈpriː/ or Wednesday /wenzdeɪ/. In words like grandson /ɡrænsʌn/, grandfather /ɡrænfɑːðə/, blindness /blaɪnəs/, kindness

/kaɪndnəs/, landscape /lændskeɪp/ or windscreen /wɪndskriːn/, the pronunciation of grapheme <d> is optional with the goal to make speech more efficient (Pospíšilová, 2014, 14).

2.3.6 The letter E

E is typically not sounded at the end of words, where it performs the function of the second element in a discontiguous digraph,which means that it changes the previous vowel sound. Sometimes terms like ‘sneaky e’ or ‘magic e’ are used instead

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of the term “silent e” to indicate this function. The words cat /kæt/ and Kate /keɪt/

illustrate this function. As a result, the silent <e> turns the vowel phoneme into the sound of the letter of the alphabet representing the sound. It also suggests the pronunciation of the preceding consonant letter. Compare rag /ræɡ/ and rage /reɪdʒ/. The silent letter e may be difficult for students as there are many exceptions to the previously stated rules. Consider words like imagine /ɪˈmædʒɪn/, come /kʌm/ or love /lʌv/. In some cases, it is not even silent, like in the word café /kæfeɪ/.

2.3.7 The letter F

This grapheme is extremely rare in a position where it does not have a phonetic counterpart. One such example is the word halfpenny /heɪpni/. However, some dictionaries that it may be also pronounced as /hɑːfpeni/.

2.3.8 The letter G

When positioned before <n> at the beginning of a word it is always silent. For example, gnome /nəʊm/, gnaw /nɔː/, gnat /næt/ and many other words. It may also be silent before <n> at the end of a word or even in different positions as long as it is in the same syllable. It is obvious when we compare the words benign /bɪˈnaɪn/, champagne /ʃæmˈpeɪn/ or feign /feɪn/ with the word insignificant /ˌɪnsɪɡˈnɪfɪkənt/, where the letters <g> and <n> when the word is divided into syllables in-sig-nif-i- cant are not positioned in the same one. Other similar words are magnet /mæɡnət/, ignite /ɪɡˈnaɪt/, ignore /ɪɡˈnɔː/, etc. Similar rules are for the letter <g> being silent before the letter <m>, as in words phlegm /flem/ or diaphragm /daɪəfræm/.

There is also an abundance of words, where the whole digraph <gh> is silent. It is very often in words where the digraph follows the combination of graphemes <au>,

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<ou> or grapheme . Such words are, for example, caught /kɔːt/, daughter /dɔːtə/, through /θruː/, though /ðəʊ/, light /laɪt/ or neigh /neɪ/. This is especially difficult for students, as there are many exceptions where the digraph represents phonemes /f/,

/k/ or where there is a small pause between /ɡ/ and /h/ and it is therefore not silent.

Words like draught /drɑːft/, laugh /lɑːf/, cough /kɒf/, lough /lɒk/ or hough /hɒk/. 2.3.9 The letter H

H is the most common one among all the silent letters and it appears in many different positions, very often preceding a vowel (Fulford, 2012, 135). Apart from the combination with g mentioned above, it is generally silent when it follows the letters

<g> or <r> at the beginning of a word or in the same syllable. Words such as ghoul

/ɡuːl/, ghetto /ɡetəʊ/, gherkin /ɡɜːkɪn/, ghastly /ɡɑːstli/, spaghetti /spəˈɡeti/, rhythm /rɪðəm/, rhyme /raɪm/ and rhubarb /ruːbɑːb/ illustrate this situation.

It is always silent at the end of words, as in monarch /mɒnək/, tempeh /tempeɪ/, yeah /jeə/, hookah /hʊkə/ or myrrh /mɜː/. Often it is silent when following graphemes <sc> at the beginning of a word, as in the words school /skuːl/ or scheme

/skiːm/. However, this is not always reliable because, as it was already mentioned, sometimes it makes /ʃ/ typical for the combination of graphemes <s> and <h>. Similar rules may apply when a word begins with <ch>, as in chemistry /kemɪstri/. In initial position it is silent in some words, e.g. honest /ɒnɪst/, especially when it forms a diphthong or a triphthong as in words hour /aʊə/ and heir /eə/. Otherwise, it is not silent in initial positions.

When the letter <h> follows <w>, it is mostly silent as well. Students are likely to encounter this combination on a daily basis. Exemplary words are when /wen/, why

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/waɪ/, where /weə/ and white /waɪt/. It is also typically silent when it follows the letter <x> or when it is between two vowel letters, e.g. exhibition /eksɪˈbɪʃn/, exhaust

/ɪɡˈzɔːst/, vehicle /viːəkl/, annihilate /əˈnaɪəleɪt/ and vehement /viːəmənt/. There are also other words in which it is silent and for which there is no special pattern. The words khaki /kɑːki/, thyme /taɪm/ or Afghanistan /æfˈɡænɪstɑːn/ may serve as examples.

As all these rules are very complex, it is potentially difficult for students to become accustomed to them. The fact that in Czech the phoneme /h/ is voiced, whereas in English it is voiceless, further complicates this problem.

2.3.10 The letter K

The rules for the letter <k> are uncomplicated. It is always silent in initial position when followed by the letter <n>. However, it is pronounced when the letters

<k> and <n> are in different syllables, as in banknote /ˈbæŋknəʊt/. Although there are many words with letter <k> silent, it should not be so problematic for students to learn the correct pronunciation as the rules are so simple. The words knob /nɒb/, kneel

/niːl/, knock /nɒk/ or unknown /ʌnˈnəʊn/ serve as examples.

2.3.11 The letter L

When preceded by graphemes <a>, <o>, or and at the same time followed by the grapheme <k>, the letter <l> is usually silent. To illustrate this we may use words like walk /wɔːk/, folk /fəʊk/ or baulk /bɔːk/. It is also typically silent when positioned after <a> and followed by <f>, <m> or <v>. This can be illustrated on words calf /kɑːf/, salmon /sæmən/ or halve /hɑːv/. Although the rules are not

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especially complicated, students are likely to encounter some exceptions, such as the word hulk /hʌlk/.

Students should be also aware of the silent <l> in words could /kəd/, should

/ʃəd/ and would /wʊd/. There are even more such words, which students simply have to memorize, some of them may be encountered very often, e.g. almond /ɑːmənd/ or Lincoln /lɪŋkən/.

2.3.12 The letter N

A typical position in which the letter <n> is silent is in the final sequence <mn>. In some cases, this sequence may be silent in other positions, provided that it is in the same syllable. N is silent for example in words condemn /kənˈdem/, column /kɒləm/, autumn /ɔːtəm/ or damned /dæmd/.

2.3.13 The letter P

P is regularly not pronounced at the beginning of a word when followed by <n>,

<s> or <t>. These words are often beginning with prefixes psych, pneu or pseudo.

Such words are typically of Greek origin. Words such as psychology /saɪˈkɒlədʒi/, pneumonia /njuːˈməʊniə/, psalm /sɑːm/ or pseudonym /sjuːdənɪm/ may be enumerated as examples. There are other, rather difficult words, which had to be memorized. For example, the words coup /kuː/, corps /kɔː/, receipt /rɪˈsiːt/, raspberry /rɑːzbəri/ or cupboard /kʌbəd/.

2.3.14 The letter R

R used to be pronounced in every position, but over course of the seventeenth and eighteenth century it became a standard not to pronounce it when followed by a consonant. Nowadays it is silent in Received Pronunciation and other non-rhotic

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accents unless it is followed by a vowel (Pospíšilová, 2014, 14). This may be very confusing because students in The Czech Republic are commonly exposed to a non- rhotic accent at schools, but they encounter the rhotic ones on a daily basis via the Internet and television.

2.3.15 The letter S

There are not many words where the letter <s> is silent. As a pattern may be considered that it is silent in some words when following the letter . These being island /aɪlənd/, aisle /aɪl/, isle /aɪl/, debris /debriː/ or viscount /vaɪkaʊnt/. It is also not pronounced in other words for which there is no pattern, e.g. rendezvous

/rɒndɪvuː/, apropos /æprəˈpəʊ/, corps /kɔː/, bourgeois /bɔːʒwɑː/ or fracas

/frækɑː/.

2.3.16 The letters I, J, M, O, Q, V, Y

These graphemes are silent only in very few words, which makes it easy to remember them. Students may encounter the words such as business /bɪznəs/ and Sioux /suː/, mnemonic /nɪˈmɒnɪk/, marijuana /ˌmærəˈwɑːnə/, people /piːpəl/, colonel /kɜːnəl/, jeopardy /dʒepədi/, leopard /lepəd/, racquet /rækɪt/, savvy /sævi/, mayor /meə/ and prayer /preə/. It is simply necessary to draw students’ attention to them.

2.3.17 The letter T

Most importantly, the letter <t> is usually silent before <ch> at the end of words or in the same syllable, such as match /mætʃ/, touch /tʌtʃ/ or crutch /krʌtʃ/. In other words, <tch> in these circumstances represent the same sound as <ch>. There is also the tendency not to pronounce <t> when it is positioned between the letters <s> and

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<l>. Such words are, for example, bustle /bʌsl/, nestle /nesl/, wrestle /resl/ or jostle

/dʒɒsl/. Similarly, it is silent when between <t> and letters en, e.g. fasten /fɑːsn/ or listen /lɪsn/. These words are often very similar and the pattern is easy to follow.

Unfortunately, the silent letter <t> is to be found in many other words, where there are no dependable patterns. Such examples may be words debut /deɪbju/, ballet

/bæleɪ/, asthma /æsmə/, depot /depəʊ/, rapport /ræˈpɔː/ or mortgage /mɔːɡɪdʒ/. These words are often of French origin.

2.3.18 The letter U

U is commonly not sounded when it is preceded by <g> and followed by a vowel. In this position, it often functions to indicate the pronunciation of the letter

<g>. Therefore it is obvious that guest is pronounced as /ɡest/ and not as /dʒest/. It is sometimes silent in the combination of graphemes <que>, as in words antique

/ænˈtiːk/ or Basque /bɑːsk/. However, it is silent in other words as well. The words such as circuit /sɜːkɪt/, biscuit /bɪskɪt/ or build /bɪld/ are typical examples.

2.3.19 The letter W

When it is in the initial position followed by <r> the letter <w> is always silent, which may be illustrated in the words wrong /rɒŋ/, wrap /ræp/ or wrist /rɪst/. It is very often silent when positioned at the beginning of a word and followed by the letter

<h>. Words who /huː/, whose /huːz/, whom /huːm/ are typical examples. There are also other words, for which there are probably no special rules. These are, for instance, answer /ɑːnsə/, knowledge /nɒlɪdʒ/, lawn /lɔːn/ or sword /sɔːd/.

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The silent realization of these letters occurs almost exclusively in some loan words like faux pas/fəʊˈpɑː/, Bordeaux/bɔːˈdəʊ/, roux/ruː/, Sioux/suː/, Grand Prix /ɡrɑ̃ːˈpriː/, rendezvous /rɒndɪvuː/and laissez-faire/leɪseɪˈfeə/.

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3 Practical part

The practical part is based on the presumption that to learn irregularities and exceptions in spelling represented by silent letters is especially difficult for Czech students of English as well as for speakers of many other languages. Moreover, the topic of silent letters represents only a very small part of all the matters which are dealt with in subjects related either to English grammar or pronunciation. Consequently, there is not enough time to study silent letters in depth. This means that students are heavily dependent on self-studying and their own listening experience in this matter.

Unfortunately, there are not many publications covering this topic in depth available on the market. Although some of the books such as Does Spelling Matter (Horobin, 2013) or Survey of English Spelling (Carney, 2014) explain the topic in detail, other books often contain only simplified explanation. Good quality textbooks and exercise books dealing with this problem are even rarer. Collins Webster's Easy Learning English Spelling, for example, dedicates only about four pages out of two hundred and thirty to this subject (Brookes, 2011). One of the aims of the practical part of the thesis is therefore to provide students of Technical University of Liberec (TUL) with materials which would enable them to study and practise using silent letters on their own at the pace which suits their needs.

Thus, the main purpose of this section is to create a Moodle lesson which would provide students in the English teacher training programme at Faculty of Science, Humanities and Education at Technical University of Liberec with theoretical explanation of the phenomenon of silent letters, and which would also give them the opportunity to practise listening and using of words which contain them. This lesson is meant to be a part of the Phonetics and Phonology course, which is not only a

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compulsory one but also one of the first courses which the students undergo during their studies.

3.1 Preparing materials

The first and the most important task of the practical part of the thesis was to prepare a list of silent letters which could be later used to prepare exercises. Initially, it was expected to find such a list anywhere on the internet or in some of the books about spelling which can be borrowed in any library. Sadly, though, not a single list of silent letters could be found which could be described as complete or at least sufficient.

Why is it so when there are so many educational resources addressing the English spelling system? From my research, it appears that forming such a list a very difficult task. There are several reasons for this.

The first reason is the enormity of the English vocabulary itself. For instance, The Second Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, which consists of twenty volumes, contains more than 171 000 words, excluding derivational and obsolete words (Simpson, 1989). Even more immense is the Complete and Unabridged Edition of the Collins English Dictionary, which consists of more than 700 000 words. Thus, it is not surprising that it is particularly difficult to designate all the silent letters among all these words.

The second reason is the fact that English – as any other language – is in the never-ending process of development and therefore the pronunciation, and even the relationship between the pronunciation and the spelling, of words changes over time.

For example, words knave /neɪv/, knead /niːd/ and knee /ni:/ used to be pronounced with the /k/ sound at the beginning, which have changed in the early seventeenth

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century and the letter k is now silent in these words (Algeo, 2004, 167). So every list would sooner or later become outdated.

The third reason is that the pronunciation of many English words is highly dependent on the accent of the speaker, as well as the speaker’s preferences. Both of the dictionaries mentioned above contain multiple variations of pronunciation for distinct words. The /t/ sound in the word often, for instance, is commonly pronounced in a Canadian and a North American accent, whereas in British English it remains, according to both Cambridge Dictionary (CD) and Oxford Learners Dictionary (OLD), only optional and it is not as common. Still, some British people may prefer to pronounce the /t/ sound. Consequently, many words contain silent letters only in specific accents, which means that to create a complex list would mean to take into consideration the differences in individual accents. This is, in combination with the reasons mentioned above, a very difficult objective to achieve.

There is one more reason, which is more related to the study of the English language than to the characteristics of the language itself. It is the inability of many authors of contemporary books dealing with English spelling and grammar in general, to agree even on the definition of silent letters, which was already mentioned in the theoretical part.

For these reasons, it was necessary for me to combine many different resources in order to make a list of words containing silent letters which students are most likely to encounter, and which may be difficult for them to remember. An article on the web of Professor Vivian James Cook’s, who is a professor of applied linguistics at Newcastle University in the United Kingdom, was used as one of the main sources, alongside with an article posted at Learning English Online and one at My English

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teacher (Ilyas, 2014). The list I compiled was then gradually expanded over the course of the following few months by adding words taken from multiple books dealing with spelling, a list of which can be seen in the resources. The process of extending the list was in progress during whole the time of working on the thesis. When the lesson and exercises were uploaded to e-learning, it consisted of almost four hundred words, but had the collecting of words continued, the list would certainly be longer. Only few words with the silent letter <r> when it is not followed by a vowel and the letter <e>

when it is at the end of a word were included as examples because there are too many of them, and – as it was already mentioned – the rules for their occurrences are quite straightforward. A simplified version of the list can be found in Appendix 3.

The subsequent step was to add a phonetic transcription for each of the words accompanied by the enumeration of the silent letters it contains, as some words included in the list contain two to three letters, and by a hyper-link to a web-page with a recorded example of its pronunciation. The pronunciation and spelling of each word added to the list were compared using OLD, CD, Macmillan Dictionary and Collins Dictionary. For each of the words, its rank in the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) was added in order to indicate the frequency of its usage in the contemporary language. This was very important because the exercises were to be based mainly on the words which students would encounter most often. The COCA was preferred to British National Corpus (BNC) simply because it contains more than five times more words than BNC and it also contains more words taken from fiction, newspaper and popular magazines and fewer samples of academic English. The ranks were obtained from Mark Davies’, an American linguist and the main creator of COCA, web-page, which is based on COCA and which provides a list of sixty thousand currently most used words in the corpus (Davies).

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3.2 The initial research

An entry diagnostic test and its examination served as the most important methods in the initial research of this thesis. Such research was necessary in order to provide information about the students' knowledge regarding the topic, which would later help with the creation of exercises in the course. The goal of the initial research was to ascertain the students' acquaintance with some of the most frequent words, which are used in contemporary English, containing silent letters and to find out which of them were the most problematic ones. A diagnostic test was chosen mainly because it is a simple, yet very effective way to examine the students' familiarity with the words chosen. Another reason was that such tests are well supported by the university's already established e-learning management system. For this reason, it was a suitable solution to reach most of the students in the programme by means of an online application which they were expected to be already familiar with.

3.2.1 The diagnostic test

Although it was already decided that the test would be offered to students via the university’s e-learning system, there were many much more important things to consider in order to prepare the test itself. These were the time and place in which the test would be presented to students, the form of the test itself, the necessity to choose the appropriate group of students and – most importantly – the need to select a set of suitable words which would provide the clearest and easily understandable results.

Concerning the students which were to be exposed to the test, the most suitable solution was to present the diagnostic test to those attending the phonetics and phonology course (FO1BE) during the first semester of their studies. It was also very important to expose the students to the test before they actually startdc to study this topic throughout the course. This was crucial in order to ascertain their level of

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knowledge about the topic of silent letters, which would help to adjust the exercises on silent letters to their needs. The feedback provided would also help them with preparation for the credit test. There was, however, a disadvantage of offering the test to the students so soon. At that time, they were not quite confident in using phonetic transcription and therefore it could not be used in the test.

Initially, the test was meant to be presented only to the students of standard full time undergraduate programme FO1BE. However, after consultation with Mrs. Nicola Karásková, who currently teaches Phonetics and Phonology courses at TUL, it was decided to include part-time students studying similar course (FO1K). There were two reasons for this: it increased the number of respondents; and the teaching material which I prepared for these students as well helped them with the preparation for their end-of-term test.

The next step was to choose the words which were to be used in the test. There were some fundamental requirements for these words. They had to be contemporary, not archaic, useful to students, and they had to vary in difficulty so that the test would not be too easy nor too difficult. To ensure that the chosen words would be contemporary, their previously recorded ranks in COCA, which were noted on the 20^th October 2017, were used. A limit was established that only words with rank within the first ten thousand words may be used in the test.

It was also necessary to choose the form of questions in the test. The form was limited to the options offered by the university’s e-learning system, which include many possibilities, such as multiple choice questions, true/false questions, drag and drop, matching questions, ordering questions or questions with short, one-word answers.

Problematika němých písmen v anglickém jazyce pro české rodilé mluvčí